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About Pavada

This blog is a place for English translations of prose and poetry from Indian languages. Please consider this note to be a standing invitation for translation contributions. If you have a translation that you think is good enough to go online, then send me email. I am Crazyfinger. I can be reached at crazyfingerorg@gmail.com.

Oct 16, 2009

The 13th century poet Janabai belongs to the varkari sect in Maharashtra. One of her poems sung by Kishori Amonkar is translated here. Her abhangs or poems reflect her luminous personality with keen perceptions and ability to articulate complex problems that have only grown bigger in present times, particularly for working women.

That her poems are available and are still sung is a miracle of sorts. Born Shudra, as a motherless child she was offered as a bonded laborer and was soon orphaned. This all too familiar background leads to what scholars call a ‘silence’ !

Becoming familiar with silences is a strange experience: it disquiets, elevates, guides and very often leaves one feeling lost. Quietly lost, we search to dispel it, like sitting in a hot, still, shade-less afternoon, with our eyes scanning treetops for movement of wind, the slightest leaf rustle a welcome sound. How many explanations run through our minds to account for nature’s erratic reticence, for that single afternoon? Was it really silent? Or only the usual noises unheard?

The written worlds, filled with the workings of the world with their own silences, the distinct cadence of female voices, are now gradually texturing the leaves of books, where once they appeared soundless. The understanding, that the unlettered Indian woman’s thoughts can never grace a book as words to be read, enjoyed and contemplated upon, supports lots of research claiming that she is ‘silent’. Since she does not use this medium, she rarely questions this notion of the lettered. This supports the blatantly wrong assumption that she is also an unthinking individual. Her thoughts and wisdom remain inaccessible to us, because we choose not to listen.

Janabai shares dais with her contemporaries Sant Dynaeshwar and Sant Namdev - poet saints of Maharastra. Her 300 odd abhangs have become part of Namdev’s repertoire of devotional songs to Lord Vittal. Here is one where the Lord Vittal works alongside her. These are not household chores as is usually described for a housemaid. This is work, labor that provides her food and shelter.

Why talk about some of her thoughts now? Well, just reading her verses reminds me of modern workplace dilemmas of gender equity, prescriptive and descriptive roles in labor distribution and fixed notions of status. The insights into her times are pertinent for our times also, since the social fabric remains largely unchanged for large sections of the Indian society. There is a universality to her observations that binds women and minorities all over the contemporary world.

In many of her poems as in this one, she takes on the normative and inverses the logic with casual ease. The lord becomes her partner at work and sometimes her assistant. She elegantly tackles dignity of labor in a society which functions precisely on the opposite of this. The lord shares all her jobs; in the process he becomes a low caste sweeper and a dhobi (washerman).

In other verses she conveys complete disregard to gender fixity and gender stereotypes. The male god Vittal becomes vittabai a woman. She demands that vittabai now comb and braid her hair, now rub her back and the lord gladly obliges. With ‘I am he’ or So Ham, she transforms female to male, human to god, dissolving all dualities.

She messes with family hierarchies; the lord is sometimes her mother, a child or an adult co-worker. The adored Namadev, whom she cared for as a child and throughout his life, was also not spared from her incisive examination. She points out that despite the egalitarian principles he espoused, he did not escape practicing inequality in his everyday interactions:

“Your wife and mother at your feetAnd sons are placed proudly in frontThis woman is kept at the doorstep ---No room for the lowly inside”

Jani is an eternal role model; her immortal thoughts are completely relevant to modern day negotiations. Her words and approach to work reminds me of my present boss; a smart, progressive, liberal human, who would rather work alongside us than delegate, who listens to how we want to do things rather than prescribing or describing our roles - someone who knows that labor and its benefits have to be shared:

“You leave your greatness behind youTo grind and pound with me.”

She is not one who does not know her own power or how others derive from it:

“What will you gain by getting angry with me?We the devotees are the source of your strengthYou have no power of your own.Hari, haven’t I understood your secret?”

Her attitude to gender reminds me of my organization’s presidents, past and present tirelessly working to make it a gender sensitive and inclusive place. But what amuses me most is that she manages to say in 6 word couplets what is now being documented with tedious research involving entire departments with sumptuous resources and personnel to expose and correct the unequal power relations and exploitative nature of labor.

The ultimate weapon she deploys - God himself to be the scribe of this unlettered woman:

“I wrote down Jani’s wordsas she uttered them,Jnanadeva!Let it beknown to youThis has not made meAny less divine……The absolute truthis the paperand ink of eternityVittal writes on itIncessantly with Jani….”

And marks her place in the world through the voice of God, no less:

“Jani’s victoryWas proclaimedIn the entire world!”

While enjoying the few translated versions of Jani’s poems and reading through the sparse material about her it is a powerful reassurance for me that the worlds Jani’s are indeed not silent. Searching through the dense noise to hear the clear music and wisdom in these ‘silences’ is deeply rewarding. To gain from their insights we need to listen to the silences, better yet, we need to include not exclude.

Sources:

The previously translated English versions in this post are referenced from:Images of Women in Maharashtrian Literature and Religion, Anne Feldhaus. And here

Oct 06, 2009

This 12th century vacana by the mystic seer Akkamahadevi, is a lovely verse that is beautiful when read, recited or sung.

The simplicity and musical flow of words tempted us to have its transliteration done into a few non-Indian languages. Chaitanya’s English translation below is followed by a Spanish and Hebrew version.

Lord, if you will listen, listen;

If you won’t, don’t—

I can’t bear to live without singing of you.

If you will look, look;

If you won’t, don’t—

I can’t bear life unless I look at you and be happy.

If you will agree, agree;

If you won’t, don’t—

I can’t bear life unless I embrace you.

If you will be pleased, be pleased,

If you won’t, don’t—

I can’t bear life unless I worship you. (Chaitanya Vacana 39)

------------

Spanish Version

Señor, si estás escuchando, escucha

Si no, no

No puedo soportar vivir sin cantarte

Si estás mirando, mira

Si no, no

No puedo soportar vivir a menos que te mire y sea feliz

Si estás de acuerdo, acuerda

Si no, no

No puedo soportar vivir a menos que te abrace

Si estás complacido, complace

Si no, no

No puedo soportar vivir a menos que te adore.

-----

Hebrew version

Adonai, im tishma, tishma;

Im lo, az lo –

Ani lo yechola lichyot bli shiratcha,

Im tistakel, histakel,

Im lo, lo

Lo oochal linso et hachaim im lo estakel allecha ve’eheye me’vsheret

Im taskim, taskim,

im lo,lo

Lo oochal linso et hachaim im lo e’ametzcha

Im titratte, hitratte

Im lo, lo

Lo oochal linso et hacha’im esgod’cha

Kannada is one of the Dravidian languages of South India. It is very interesting to note how well the words and the meaning retain their beauty in Spanish and Hebrew, just as it does in English. The speakers and origin of these four languages; Kannada, English, Spanish and Hebrew are separated by large geographical distances but there is linguistic proximity among them. Contrast this with Kannada and Mandarin speakers, who live comparatively closer, yet are separated by greater linguistic distance.

Cavalli-Sforza’s study of human populations, genes and language evolution has some interesting insights into this:

Hebrew, the modern version used here has an Afro-Asiatic origin, English and Spanish (as spoken in Spain) belong to the Indo-European group and Kannada is a Dravidian one. They cluster close together as seen in this evolutionary tree of genes and languages:

We are grateful to Aureliano Gomez and Naama for enthusiastically doing the translation of the above 12th century Kannada vacana into Spanish and Hebrew respectively.

Aure is a biologist-programmer and a writer of Spanish stories. Naama is a biologist-programmer, cyclist and mom of two. Both translators are atheists.

This is a verse from one of 300 odd vacanas written by Akkamahadevi, the kannada mystic poet-seer from 12th century, during the fabulously democratic period in Karnataka. A time when women intellectuals numbering well over sixty held discourse with a few hundred fellow male truth seekers, philosophers and spiritual leaders as a normal course. The dialog between the male head at the assembly of the learned, at Anubhava mantapa and Akkamahadevi, who sought to participate in the discussions is lore. The questions and answers specifically referring to her naked body, and her spiritual quest in the public forum are rendered to this day as songs.

Prabhu to Akka: “Can you be one with God with a human form, a female body?”

Akka to Prabhu: “Would the sandalwood cease its fragrance when it's cut into pieces? Would a piece of gold, even when cut and heated, lose its lustre?

When you search for my bygone sins and hurl them at my face, the deprivation is yours.

O Lord, though you may slay me, I will never cease to love Lord Siva.”

Here she illustrates the superficiality of external appearance and the integrity of the inner core, and demonstrates the willingness to question authority, while putting her case across for acceptance into the fraternity of devotees.

Akkamahadevi, the one drunk with love for her lord Cennmallikarjuna, is beloved to the kannada people, her vacanas were not poems, but 'sayings', a given promise or commitment, for this was the time when the veera-shaiva movement challenged every tradition that lead to inequality, and that included trashing poetic rules of scale and metre.

In Chaitanya's word's:

"The Vacana literary form arose as a part of people's movement against oppression in the name of Sanskrit as the 'divine' language. The veera-saiva poets wrote in Kannada, refuting the millennia-old belief that 'native' languages were incapable of dealing with universal verities."

Of the many vacanas that I've heard while growing up, I chose the above one, as it is one that I read only as an adult, first in English then in Kannada. There are many works on Akkamahadevi, trying to understand her quests of dualities; of mind and body, the profane and scared, she will remain one to whom I will return again and again, for her sayings will reveal other dimensions of truth with passing age and changing experiences.

I am now at the stage when the physical body fascinates me. Menzes and Angadi in their book describe her thus:

"Her body simply did not exist -a burnt-up corpse, a dried up tank, a burnt cord. If she partly covers herself with long hair, it is for the sake of others, not her own. How else could she be Cennamallikarjuna's bride?" And to her narrative, they say:

"Akkamahadevi appears as a master-psychologist of a woman's heart. She dreams of her lover by night, and dreams of him by day.... she provides a probing of the feminine heart that offer a thorough, clinical analysis of love" and in comparison they say even, "Proust did not use his microscope for more realistic details of our consciousness when moved by passion."

I am not that inclined to explore the romantic or spiritual in me as much as I am interested in understanding the physical body. It is however difficult to separate these elements in Akka's vacanas, but I try, as girls and women negotiating the 21 century paradoxes, one needs to locate the one possession that we can fully claim as our own.

My body is my own. Not my mind, in the organic sense, for it has too many other influences that are not mine. Why is it important I know the body? Is it not enough to know and command just the mind? I could use Foucault's treatise to explain to myself the power-relations, oppression-subjugation and so on, of the male and female bodies and their relationships, with the entire society itself being centered around this one possession. And the myriad ways the mind is controlled through the manipulation of body ownership.

However, his methods of exploring the questions of body and sexuality are primarily through the Christian narrative. This leaves me quite inattentive and unable to relate it to my Indian reality. The institutions through which we receive and process information about our bodies in India are quite different.

There are a number of female poets who have unflinchingly addressed the body. But I choose Akkamahadevi not just for the completely radical approach she took to resolve issues, but more because of the familiarity with the language of her vacanas. Kannada is the language of my childhood and many of these verses are voices that inform my consciousness.

Though Foucault has few answers for the Indian women's narrative of the body and sexuality (at least to me), I strangely depend on the English language to reinterpret vacanas in adulthood. Is it because it is the language that first allowed me to know my body, at least in the biological sense? Quite possibly so!

Since the 12th century she has been written about by others, it has been noted that they have been mostly men, and the English translated books that I have been reading are also by men. I do not question their interpretation; I use their translated vacanas to study Akka's verses that explicitly refers to the body. Something that seems to have become completely out of reach for several centuries, right up to the present times for us.

Rarely will you come across Indian women comfortably addressing their body, its desires, its function and their control over all these. The disruption in the narrative of the body for which Akkamahadevi so simply and clearly leads the way, is astounding in its near complete silencing of women being able to talk directly about their bodies. This loss in vocabulary has contributed to it being relegating to some unnamable entity buried in layers of modesty, which are but, neat guises for the society's spin that continues to put women in ever reducing spaces, to be free as humans.

I leave you with this movie clip by Madhushree Datta with score set by Iliayaraja.

Sep 26, 2009

One particular Urdu poem by Mirza Ghalib is a special favorite of mine. Here is my attempt at English translation. Ralph Russell translated only first 4 lines or so in his book. And who can not be transfixed by this wonderful television series...? If someone can help fill the <missing two lines> I owe you one.